Mountain Lane Homesteaders

Never underestimate the hazards of fallen trees and icy roads!

Picture the scene:

One logger shimmies the side of a steep slope, chainsaw in hand, in an attempt to reach the ENORMOUS dead douglas fir tree that will fill two trucks with excellent long burning firewood. Maybe it wouldn't all even fit in two! The second logger is the get-away-guy. Their job is to wait for the tree to fall, back their truck up, hook on the heavy chain, and quickly pull the prize out of the middle of the icy road and onto the side where it can be cut into sections for loading. Logger number three has the distint duty of watching for cars coming from either direction to stop them dead in their tracks lest they be on the section of road directly beneath the oncoming tree at precisely the wrong moment!

All goes beautifully. The tree has landed and been removed. All three loggers have done their jobs. Now logger three sees that there is a car headed in their direction and shouts. All three scurry to clear away any large shattered bits from when the tree hit the road and the car passes without even having to pause. Ah, all is well on this logging day.......almost. There are still some pieces of brush and twigs that have to be picked up and thrown aside. Not much was left now so logger three began the "shuffle clear". Take a step with one foot, swipe brush aside with the other. It was that third shuffle/swipe step that was the doozy.

Anybody yet figured out that I am the unfortunate logger number three? You wouldn't have any questions about it if you could feel the headache I'm left with! Apparantly I went down and hit the back of my head.  Hard.  Sam said he ran to me and started to talk to me. My eyes were open but he knew I wasn't seeing him. He said I was also making some kind of strange noise in my throat. I don't remember any of it. One minute I knew I was slipping, and the next minute I was "coming to" and Sam was pulling me up off the road and walking me to the truck. I sat there for about an hour fighting nausea and making sure not to doze. Sam (he was logger two by the way) kept checking in on me while the truck was being loaded. At one point our friend Frank (logger one....the mountain goat) looked in and asked me how my head was. I said, "It hurts." (I'm not thinking there was anything else TO say!). His response? "Yeah. I heard it hit." Great. I'll be holding my head up high as this news gets around town.

Now let me just say that of all the more fascinating injuries I could have endured while out in the woods for the day........animal attack, a wayward tree landing on me and trapping me underneath, or even being hit with flying chainsaw shrapnel, I get to report the unfortunate injury of FALLING OVER MY OWN TWO FEET!

How undignified.

*Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW, WHAT A RIDE!"